It took me twenty-five years to work out that being myself was actually an alright thing to be. That’s when I stopped making excuses for not doing things I knew would make me uncomfortable and gave in to blissful weekends spent cooking and wandering around galleries, rather than feeling like I should be out being groped and sweated on in a crowded club like I was at seventeen. I’m still twenty-five; this revelation was recent and a long time coming. I suspect it takes other people much less time to accept themselves, and others a lot more. Tracey Emin’s new show, "Love is What you Want", suggests that she’s still not quite there.

To be honest, I’ve never had many positive things to say about Emin and I went to this show expecting to hate it. I’ve always found her work a little too raw, too overtly sexualised and a bit of an unnecessary over-share. I’ve ranted about her never smiling in photographs, being famous for being obscene rather than for the quality of her art, and for differentiating between “artists” and “picture makers”, thereby glorifying the cult of the artist rather than their finished work. Some things, I thought, like your ongoing obsession with your own abortions, are best kept to yourself. But really, why should they be? I cannot speak from experience on abortion, but if something you’ve gone through consumes your thoughts to that extent, shouldn’t you be allowed to talk about it until it eases the pain? Isn’t art actually the perfect medium through which to express how you feel on the inside?

Emin’s show is magnificent in its openness; this is not an artist who holds anything back, and her work is certainly not for the faint hearted. Let’s put it this way – my mother sent me details of the exhibition but she didn’t come with me, and my boyfriend is still recovering from "The History of Painting, Part 1" (1998), which combines enough used tampons and pregnancy tests to terrify any man. But then men are typically a source of pain in Emin’s work, from the brute who raped her at thirteen, to those through whom she tried to reclaim her body during multiple one night stands as a teenager, and finally the boyfriends who caused endless heartbreak as relationship after relationship fell apart. Sexual and emotional rejection, and the on-going mourning of her unborn children dominate Emin’s work, but her pieces don’t incite pity because Emin isn’t a cuddly artist. You don’t want to sit down and have a cosy cuppa with her, but you do hope to God that you don’t go through what she has.

A large area of "Love is What you Want" is devoted to Emin’s neon pieces, which emphasise her need to make a statement, to shock, to make her voice heard above the rabble. These did little for me, primarily because I don’t feel that art needs to shock to be effective. In fact, the work that stuck the most in my mind was Feeling Pregnant (2000), a simple text piece consisting of three framed pieces of A4 paper, on which Emin recounts the routine she goes through before each period: two days of abject terror that she might be pregnant. The show is full of references to her aborted babies, including clothing the artist has made for them, and she has much to say of her violent swings between wanting something to love so much that it would fill up her world, and running from the realities of pregnancy and motherhood. I’m lucky in that I’ve never struggled with whether or not I want a family, but I – like the vast majority of unmarried twenty-somethings – understand that fear of not having control over your own body.

A lot has been – and will be – written about Emin’s work in terms of its ability to horrify, and she certainly doesn’t hold back when it comes to the role sex has played in her life. However, the beauty of Emin as an artist is precisely that which we rail against; she empties her soul into her art, whichever medium this may embody, and lays bare her darkest moments and most neurotic thoughts. Most of us spend a great deal of time trying not to look crazy in front of those who are important to us, and find that our best friends and lovers end up being those who look at us at our worst and still love us. "Love is What you Want" certainly didn’t make me want to share my secrets with the world, but it did inspire immense respect for one who is brave enough to do so.

Another artist seemingly full of sexual angst, but Schiele has interpreted his into visually stunning images with undoubted talent, whereas I feel that Emin is using her work as some sort of therapy to overcome her horrific experiences, and lives them over and over.
They are not shocking but a somewhat juvenile attempt at feeling sorry for herself and shouting/crying poor me !!
She cannot convey her own demons in the way that other artists have done so who also may have suffered in some way, either physically or mentally.
It may be she has chosen the wrong medium ?
Does she lack talent ; or is it, because of her constant use of words which are not intrinsically potent as an image, she should have tried poetry, prose, the novel or plays.

Wow, interesting juxtaposition of artists/artists with issues. I'd like to see her work reviewed by Carolyn Hax, advice columnist for the Washington Post. Emin's work was also just reviewed in the newest Art in America, Int'l Review. While her quilts are visually gorgeous, there comes a point when, as the viewer, the first few pieces may shock and call you to pay closer attention but the 6th or 7th similar piece may make you numb, bored and have contempt for the artist that keeps putting herself in the same predicament over and over. You have to ask yourself, as a woman, if you feel like you are over-sexualized, what can you, personally, do to change that?

A good review me thinks! However, I would disagree with Alex in one respect. Tracy Emin is someone who I think would be extremely interesting to sit down with and have a cosy cuppa. In reality, we probably all want that at some point. Surely, this is in large part the motivating energy behind Emin - she wants to speak about real experiences - to offload the detritus that has become commonly accepted as life's experience, but which is not permitted an other outlet for expression. Instead, it is brushed under the proverbial carpet - sanitised, or removed from general view as something that should not be engaged with. "..a little too raw"? Surely not. Life, or at least the outward representation of life, has become horribly artificial and saccarin. The problem I have with Emin's work is that it asks the same questions all the time and as an artist I feel she has a narrow view of the world. Perhaps this is also her strength in so far as it permits a body of work with a very specific psychological timbre.
Comment by: Pete Massingham on Monday 06/06/11 at 12:43 AM